Critically acclaimed percussionist Ryan Scott is one of Canada's most illustrious and esteemed musicians of his generation. On this CD are his first performances and the North American premieres of three Ishii Percussion Concerti, played from memory and recorded live in performance by CBC Radio 2 with the Esprit Orchestra, Canada's only full-sized orchestra devoted exclusively to performing and promoting new orchestral music.

Maki Ishii's (1936-2003)creative endeavour was rooted in the attempt to stride two musical worlds by combining European compositional methods with elements from the sound palette of Japanese traditional music. The seldom heard music on this CD comes from a four year period in the composer's life when he turned his attention to the art of the percussion concerto.

Notes & Reviews:

Recording information: Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto, Ontario.

Reviews

Ryan Scott/Maki Ishii Live / Innova

Ryan Scott is one amazing player (rare) and Maki Ishii is a real ‘guts and glory’, modern composer (rarer). It’s a win/win situation where after hearing this CD, the two should be made into national treasures from there respective countries (Canada and Japan) What makes it so spellbinding is Scott plays with the ferocity and delicacy of a seducing demon, without one clam articulation, at speeds beyond comprehension, with completely convincingly shaped phrasing. Meanwhile Ishiis’ style is ablaze with rapturous pentatonic harmonies (though still in pitch sets) and is not beset by atonal gray murkiness. It’s violent and tender, beautiful and extremely ugly. Its austere clarity removes any formal ambiguity –a perfect place for Scott to unleash his powerful musicality.

The first piece is for percussion and orchestra is ‘Saidoki’ (demon) .The percussion part is entirely improvised by Scott on weird, homemade metal and bamboo percussion instruments. With them, there are lots of effective glisses, bowing, and eerie decays,
creating a strange cornucopia of exotic unpitched/ multipitched sounds. Meanwhile, the orchestra has long stretches of quiet timbre beauty and space contrasted with burst of violent sustainess. The final build is magical, consisting of quasi-contrapuntal/canonic lines in the orchestra starting from extreme pppp to an ffffff huge climax. Overtop, Scott plays a feverish demon-like obbligato like a lunatic. The climax is jaw dropping.
Stylistically, there’s a Varese meets Xenakis meets Takemitsu going on---while all the percussion sustain decays and glisses give it an electro-acoustic aura.

The next piece is ‘Concertante ‘(1988) for six percussionists and marimba. Here and in all the subsequent pieces, Scott is playing from memory (?!?!how is that possible?). It starts with a strong gesture followed by lots of space, which Scott fills with really magical timbral/dynamic playing. There’s also great playing from the other percussion players. Scotts’ very definitive phrasing always keeps the music moving dramatically forward (it helps that he has such an intuitive understanding of Japanese acc/rit phrasing). This is followed by incredibly fast passages and astonishing accuracy in the tripe/quadruple stops. The fortissimos are superheroish in power, on top of being at breakneck speed. The following slow movement (around 9;00 min.) mark a lot of really juicy pitches choices—like Boulez in slow motion—only all the right pentatonic pitches and no ugly12 tone ones. Throughout the piece there’s a real originality and sensitivity in the pitch writing--somewhere mid pacific between the western academic tradition and Japanese noh drama. This is followed by a tremolo transition section that veers back to the final climax, which is skillfully handled by Scott and Co.. The music abounds in more otherworldly texture/pitches, while Scott never lets the music drag with a very strong sense of his eventual phrasing goal. The ending is a brief cadenza-like passage, full of incredible playing by Scott and the percussion section, consisting of quadstops and tremolos and lightening fast passages culminating into a huge climax.

The final percussion/orchestra piece is ‘South Fire Summer’ (1992) and again the orchestra here is like a giant resonator pit or hall for the percussion player. More spacious, beautiful timbres sounds abound, with loud FFFfortissimo interruptions. It has all the ambiance of a tropical jungle while being crushed by a dinosaurs’ foot--while fragments of melodies float by, masterfully shape by Scott. This moves to a section with more Varese-like sustained crescendos with Messiaen-like chord patterns. The orchestra writing is really original around the 13:00 min. mark ---another one of those murky contrapuntal/canonic sustained builds to another cadenza, and playing beyond human capability. Then a high sus climax, followed by a fast little coda, featuring nice rhythmic playing from the orchestra. (the 3/8 section into high sustains is very effective). Throughout the coda there’s some amazing tomtom playing by Scott –the articulations are perfect, as well as all the acc/rits between the orchestras articulation points.

In general, in this piece, as the others, some of the orchestra tuttis could have been better balanced/tuned, but it’s a live recording—which if it was a studio recording all that could be fixed. In fact, some of the clams in the orchestra lend themselves to the sheer brutality of Ishiis’ style. Despite that, the Esprit players and the conductor Alex Pauk do an amazing job considering the live limitations---especially the percussion section (there’s something in the water in Toronto that breeds so many great players). This is a great recording and I highly recommend it.